She looked at him oddly. Suddenly she rose to her feet. Halloran followed her example, also following as she crossed the yard. When she started up the steep slope, he came after, on a narrow trail that they followed without difficulty in the moonlight.

For some time, they climbed in silence. The house, the village, the valley bottom all dropped away behind them. Even the scent of smoke and ash and blood from ruined Palul dissipated with distance. The wind freshened up here, and it was comfortably cool against their skin. It washed around them and seemed to cleanse some of the horror away. Still, Halloran felt the lingering presence of death behind them.

They reached the top and stopped. Erix pointed out the narrow draw where the Kultakan warrior had captured her. She explained that her father's bird snares had, at that time, extended all along the upper slopes of the ridge. Then her eyes drifted upward again.

"It seems almost as if you can touch them," she said. The stars blinked in a great dome around them. The faint illumination of dawn streaked the eastern horizon, promising eventual sunrise. "I wish the sun would wait awhile before he rises… just today."

"If I could stop it – him – for you, I would," Hal said. He wanted to tell her that he would do anything she asked. Again the mental pictures of the slaughter at Palul came to him, and he could no longer remain mute. "When I feared that you'd be caught in the battle, my terror was worse than any I have ever known."

She smiled and took his hands. "I think that I knew you'd come for me," she said softly.

"Your father spoke of us together. Shadows and light, he said. What does it mean?"

"Perhaps he means the colors of our skins," she laughed. With the sound of her laughter, Hal knew that he could never again let her go.

"Erixitl, do you know that I… I love you?" Hal asked, his voice taut. He feared to look at her face as he spoke.

"Yes, I know," she said. Her brown eyes were wide, and he wanted to fall into them as she looked up at him.

"Do… do you…" His voice caught. In answer, she reached her hands up around his shoulders, pulling his head down to hers. Halloran crushed his lips to her, and she drew them together with fiery strength. They remained in this embrace for a long time, clinging to each other for love, and strength, and hope. For these moments, Hal was aware only of this warm, loving woman in his arms.

But then the visions of treachery and slaughter returned. Halloran broke away with a tortured groan. "I can't get the pictures out of my mind!" He clasped his hands to his eyes, rubbing them savagely, but still he saw the blood and the death and the crying.

"We can't forget the killing," said Erix. Her voice was thick and her eyes filled with tears. "But neither can we deny our own life."

When her dress fell to the ground, Erixitl's skin glowed in the moonlight with a brilliant copper sheen. Her beauty, and his love for her, drove every other image from Halloran's mind.

"The time draws close," hissed the Ancestor, "and our plan hangs by a thread that can be sliced off by the life of a young woman!" Unprecedented passion blazed in his words.

"I repeat to you all: She must be killed!" The Darkfyre surged upward with his command, swelling around the dark-robed drow gathered in the heart of the Highcave. The seething caldron shook with a deep resonance that caused the very heart of the mountain to rumble. Red coals flared and waned, and the infernal crimson glow rose and fell in a steady pulse.

"The invaders have entered Nexal. The stage is set for Naltecona's death and the cult's preeminence. All our plans, our centuries of preparations, stand in danger because this woman lives!"

The Ancestor trembled, so palpable was his rage. And with him trembled the bedrock of the Highcave.

"She will return to Nexal now – she must. And there we will find her. Alert all the priests, but that is not enough. The bungling of those human clerics has become all too apparent.

"This time, we will go ourselves." The drow around him stood still, in shock. "Yes, my children. We can no longer remain in the sanctity and solitude of our lair. We will enter the city by night and search it from end to end if we must!"

Under Cordell's orders, legionnaires had assembled beams and planks to make tables and benches in the palace. Now Bishou Domincus and Captain Alvarro enjoyed the luxury of a fine meal, served by pretty Maztican slave girls. With a satisfied smacking of lips, the cleric savored the succulent leg of a turkey. The greasy bones of the second leg and a thigh lay on the crude table beside him.

Alvarro cast a sideways glance at the Bishou, noting that they were alone except for the slaves. Kardann had eaten with them, but the assessor had left, declaring his intention to explore the palace that now served as the legion's barracks.

"Halloran was there at Palul," grunted the red-bearded captain of horse.

The Bishou stiffened. "You saw him?" The cleric's brows darkened grimly.

Alvarro nodded.

"And he escaped? He lives?"

The captain cursed and lied. "He fought beside a hundred of those savage warriors. I was alone, except for Vane. We could do nothing!"

"But Cordell – surely you told him!"

Alvarro related the tale of the captain-general's indifference, while the Bishou seethed.

"My daughter's death will not be avenged as long as Halloran lives!" growled Domincus. The fact that Halloran had been powerless to prevent Marline's sacrifice meant nothing to the cleric, the man had been forever branded as one with the savages in his mind.

Suddenly the pudgy form of the assessor burst through the door. His face was flushed with excitement. "Come here – come this way!" Kardann cried.

"What is it, man?" demanded the Bishou, reluctant to leave his repast. Alvarro rose, however, and so the cleric followed.

The assessor from Amn led Bishou Domincus and Captain Alvarro down one of the long corridors in the palace. "It's in here!" Kardan gasped excitedly.

The two men followed him into a small room with multiple columns around its periphery, and many colorful frescoes depicting the mountains and fertile land surrounding the lake and the city. It looked like a passageway, except that the far end was merely a blank wall, not an entrance or hallway.

"Look! I dont know what it is, but it's got to be something. Look at this!" Barely containing his excitement, the pudgy assessor held up his lantern and gestured toward the wall at the back of the room.

"What is it?" snapped the Bishou irritably. "You pulled me away from a good meal, dragged me halfway across the palace -"

"Me, too," grumbled Alvarro. "And now we hear that you don't even know what you've found! Couldn't it wait till after dinner?"

But now Bishou Domincus leaned close to the wall, intrigued. Alvarro ceased complaining long enough to investigate whatever it was that had captured the cleric's attention.

"There's definitely some kind of a doorway here," said Domincus, stepping closer to the wall. "Look, here's a crack where you can see the top of it – and here, these are the sides. It's a secret door!"

The Bishou turned to Kardann. "Let's see if we can get it open. There's got to be a catch, a release or something, around here somewhere."

"Look." Alvarro had his dagger out and probed along the base of the concealed door. He found a slot in the floor, less than a half-inch wide, and the horseman inserted the tip of his weapon there.

They heard a sharp click as Alvarro pressed down with the sword. "Push" he impatiently told the others.